The One Where the Canon Abuse is Still Abuse
by Areli-Kokuchi
Summary: Harry lives with the Dursleys and then with Remus and Sirius. And somewhere in the mix it turns out that neglect and verbal abuse are bad. Really, properly bad.
1. Chapter 1

The One Where the Canon Abuse is Still Abuse

Harry's stomach rumbled ominously as he pulled the last weed from the back garden's flower beds. The summer had been especially hot that year, with only about three items in most people's wardrobes being bearable to wear without the desperate desire to suddenly strip due to heat and temporary insanity.

However, Harry had more troubles than just the heat. He was even more exhausted than he usually was during Summer (which was, admittedly, due to the heat) and was desperately trying to find a way of completing his summer homework while his 'freaky' stuff was all locked under the stairs.

Well, that's not quite true. He wasn't that desperate. He was still a teenager. And Hogwarts was still school. Like many students he was trying to calculate whether he could do it all on the train.

He headed inside to get a glass of water, carefully scraping his shoes before stepping into the meticulously clean kitchen.

He drank what must have been two pints of water, before cleaning the glass carefully and replacing it. He then ran a mop over the mud on the floor.

He might not have liked it, but he had known the Dursleys for fourteen years. He knew how they'd react if he wasn't this careful. What's more, due to the heat effectively beaching Vernon and Dudley (like the whales they are, Harry thought) Petunia had become even more vigilant against Harry and his "messiness", due to the fact that she knew she could rightfully blame it all on him.

Harry checked the kitchen clock. It was half past five. He had half an hour before starting to cook dinner, so he slipped quickly upstairs, glancing into the living room where Vernon and Petunia stared at the TV, under the cooling wind of the electric fan.

XXX

Harry threw himself back onto his bed. The sheets felt marginally cooler than the air, and his bed was in the shade, so he closed his eyes for a bit.

About twenty minutes later he heard a tapping on his window, and woke up to let an owl in. Well, it was probably an owl. It also looked a bit like a bat.

It was carrying a letter (surprisingly enough).

He guided the owl over to his desk, where he cautiously handed it an owl treat, hoping that, whatever it was, it would appreciate it. He opened the letter.

**Dear Harry,**

**How is your summer going? Sorry I haven't written much, but I was a little distracted, and I couldn't tell you, and seeing as my life was a little consumed, there wasn't much else to talk about. Anyway, I can tell you now.**

**I've got my old house back! Which sounds alright, especially with that exclamation mark, but it isn't really. It's rather bleak. So, I went through it, took some stuff that looked dark and expensive and sold it to a friend in Knockturn Alley. Then I gave the house to Dumbledoor for his anti-Voldemort group and bought a smaller house. Well, un-mortgaged it. Sort of. The Blacks had a load of old houses that they pawned, or sold on a lease and I just bought one back.**

**And now I'm living here with Moony! It's nice, the people who were living here (who weren't Blacks) got rid of the ancient damp feel (nothing belonging to the family was left here) and it's just an ordinary house (with super amazing defences/wards/whatever).**

**So, the point is, we have a new house and it's safe, so would you like to come and stay? Just say when!**

**-Sirius**

Harry grinned. It was true, he hadn't heard much from Sirius, and Ron and Hermione had started talking only about each other, something Harry wasn't sure he was comfortable with. So their letters were less of a comfort than they used to be. And this summer felt like it was just going on and on and on. The heat probably didn't help.

Harry rubbed the paper between his thumb and forefinger, finding another slip of parchment behind Sirius' letter.

_Dear Harry,_

_Sirius said he was writing to you so I thought I'd add my two penny's worth. We'd love to have you stay for however long you want, whenever, as we've finally finished unpacking and realised that, both being unemployed at the moment, there is __nothing else to do__. We may have to re-decorate the spare (or 'your') room, just for the sake of it._

_You will be quite safe here, don't worry, just tell us if you want to come, and if so when._

_-Remus_

_P.S. Sorry about whatever strange creature Sirius ends up sending this with. He's known for thinking the weirder you look, the harder you'll work. (It's an interesting belief, with no evidence to back it up that I've seen.)_

Harry allowed himself about twenty seconds of insane grinning, before forcing himself to check the clock. He should probably start dinner if he intended to have it all cooked before the start of whatever program starting at seven the Dursleys were planning to watch.

He forcibly left the letter under his pillow, squashing the ridiculous urge to put it in his pocket and carry it around. He turned to the owl and awkwardly told it, "right, you can go home if you want, or wait here for an hour before I write a reply."

The owl-bat thing looked back blackly. As usual, Harry felt self-conscious _before_ trying to talk to the owl (sometimes things that haven't been there from birth never feel normal) and this only made him feel stupid. So he left the window open (it was a warm night) and went downstairs to cook.

Happily passive-aggressively cooking heavy, hot, winter foods, Harry tried to stop himself from composing letters to Sirius and Remus accepting their invitation without sounding desperate.

He had reached the point where he had forgotten the beginning of the only letter that was sounding decent, when he started setting the table. He was aware that the Dursleys wanted to watch TV while eating (in their new summer "keep-unfit" regime) but firstly, he wanted to annoy them, and secondly, last time he had attempted to serve food in the living room (the day before) he had been batted out of the way of the TV so many times that he fell over trying to stop the food from spilling. The food hadn't spilt, so no-one cared. Except perhaps the stuff under the sofa, which Harry hadn't bothered to clear out the next day due to the bruises on his hips (from Vernon's massive hands batting him) making it hurt to bend over that far.

Happy with his neat setting of the table - medium-nice napkins at all (Petunia would kill him if he put out the very-nice napkins) – he entered the living room to announce dinner.

XXX

After a satisfyingly unsatisfying dinner of winter stew (Vernon, Petunia and Dudley had been annoyed, but hadn't found the irrationality to blame Harry. It had been brilliant) and stacking the dishwasher, Harry took the stairs two at a time and pulled the letters out from under his pillow.

He pulled a sheet of paper from the refill pad he'd bought in the newsagents and started to reply. Trying hard not to seem desperate, he talked about everything other than going to stay with Sirius and Remus first:

_Dear Sirius,_

_Summer's been too hot and rather monotonous so far. Glad to hear yours has been more productive!_

_Don't worry about any lack of letters, you have an excuse._

_I'm happy for you that you got a house, it sounds like a proper home._

_I'd love to come and stay! I'm just living through the days here, so I can come whenever you're ready to receive me._

_-Harry_

Then, attached to the back:

_Dear Remus,_

_Thank you for your letter. Like I said to Sirius, I'd love to come stay with you two and so far I have no plans for doing anything else. Basically I'm happy to come and go whenever you want/get tired of me._

_Looking forward to seeing you,_

_-Harry_

_P.S. Maybe he reasons that if you're a weird looking bird you get less work and therefore work harder on the work you do get?_

The bat/owl was still there so Harry tied the scroll onto it's leg, fed it a chunk of meat from the stew (only lukewarm and slightly soggy, but the thing didn't seem to mind) and sort of threw the bird out of the window.

XXX

Morticius returned to the Grotto (which was what Sirius had renamed the house, to Remus' quiet horror) with Harry's letters about a day after leaving them. It was morning, relatively speaking, so Remus had been up a few hours and Sirius was having breakfast.

They both read the letters directed to them, then, without discussing it, swapped and read the other's.

"Well, Harry's perceptive," Sirius commented, having read Harry's explanation for his owl choice.

"He is . . . mature. Only Molly and Andromeda so far have commented on how home-y our house is."

"Is that maturity? I thought that was just . . ." Sirius trailed off.

"Just what?"

"Well, you know when we met, and he'd only just got his head around the idea I wasn't a serial murderer and was . . . y'know."

"Yes." Remus forgave Sirius for not mentioning James and Lily.

"He asked to come live with me then, didn't he? So his own home can't be that great."

"I suppose." Remus thought back to the relationship he and Harry had had during his brief stint as a Professor. He'd not thought much about Harry's need for the relationship, knowing that he himself had been rather desperate for a link back to the Marauders. But looking back now it was easy to see Harry too had a desperation for a link back to his original family, one that he clearly didn't find at home. "He's coming here though," Remus pointed out, more to comfort Sirius than anything, "he can stay with you now."

XXX

As Harry sullenly dripped down the stairs Dudley suddenly raced past him, pushing him into the banister and stomping especially loud on the stairs in the middle of the staircase. Harry winced and rolled his eyes in one. The lard still hadn't subconsciously realised that Harry was (kinda) free now, the ingrained random torture habits were still present. Harry gingerly poked his hip where his bruises had hit the banister and continued down the stairs, past a slightly panting Dudley, and into the kitchen. It was vaguely entertaining that the pig would strain himself so just to continue the Harry Hunting mentality; any other teenage boy would have gone down the stairs far slower and probably a lot later – since before Harry could remember Dudley had woken before him to ensure maximum time spent being obnoxious.

Harry pulled open the freezer and pulled out the bacon substitute Petunia had moved on to in the newest diet. There were also powdered eggs. Harry wasn't sure if they were made during the muggle second world war or not, but comforted himself that probably not if they sat 'fat free' – which they did. Harry was standing at the surface next to the fridge when Dudley waddled into the kitchen and slammed open the fridge into the side of Harry's face. He made a noise of objection and Petunia called Dudley back to the living room so he wouldn't try to snack – not that there was any food in the fridge Dudders could have snacked on, Petunia having filled it only with ingredients.

Breakfast was served with green tea; something Petunia drank buckets of but always left her with such a sour face one would think she was drinking firewhiskey. Harry scooped the leftovers into a Tupperware pot to make it seem he wasn't stealing their food, only saving it. The fact the Dursleys were never served leftovers didn't seem to cross their minds. Maybe it did Petunia's, but Harry never could tell with her since when he was a child he had elaborate fantasies about the way in which she secretly loved and looked after him and so any hint of kindness from her that could have been accidental . . . well, Harry wasn't sure if he was still delusional enough to consider such a thing or if it had become possible. He didn't have anyone else's opinion to fall back on or compare to.

After serving and saving his own food Harry slipped into the back garden: a tiny square of grass, lined with concrete tiles with a bush or two. It was only eight o'clock. The Dursleys rose with their son. The dew was still just about noticeable on the grass, and Harry spent ten minutes poking the grass with his toes trying to find any weeds.

"What are you doing, practicing ballet?" yelled Vernon through the back door, where his purple face had appeared after he leant back on his chair's back legs. Vernon chuckled to himself as Harry quickly walked over to the big green plastic box they kept gardening tools in. He found something for grass and all the things that weren't grass and squatted to spray something called "Go Grow!" onto the lawn.

About half an hour later Petunia called into the back garden, "We're going to Highgate to go swimming. We'll be back later."

Harry shuddered at the image of them all in their swimwear and put the gardening things back in the box.

Petunia looked down her nose and studied him as he entered the house, once again meticulously dusting the bottom of his shoes off on the mat they had by the backdoor. Petunia sniffed. "The things we were to have today for lunch are about to go off. Get rid of them or bacteria will spread."

When they had left Harry sat at the table and ate breakfast out of the Tupperware box. He rubbed his ankles together under the table he never usually sat at.

The Tupperware box was washed dried and put back in the cupboard, as was the cutlery.

Harry then went and stripped the sofa and soft chair of the covers, which he was certain were getting dirty through the sweat dripping from the whales that spent their days beached there, and threw then into the washing machine.

XXX

Number four Privit Drive was a terribly dull house in Sirius' opinion. "If I had to live here I'd have to paint the house pink and fill the garden with muggle gnomes," he told Remus as they walked toward the house.

"Which is so different to what you've done to our house," Remus replied dryly.

Sirius smirked. "Our house is beautiful."

Remus smiled softly at Sirius and leant forward to raise and drop the knocker on the door. There was no response. He pressed the bell and knocked again. Then they waited a minute. The Sirius rapped the knocker several times while pressing the doorbell as many times as he could in a short space of time.

Finally a curtain twitched in the window next to the door and there was a rustle of movement before the door slammed open and they were both engulfed in a hug from a messy black hair-topped thing. Sirius let out a breath of laughter that was cut off as Harry pulled them quickly inside the house.

"What? Is there someone watching?" Remus asked. Sirius' grinned dropped as he joined Remus in the concerned and alert status.

"No, no- Not like you think. Just the neighbours. They don't like me. Or men in dresses. The Dursleys can't know anyone else knows you're here." Harry stopped to grin. "I'm glad you're here."

Sirius gave him another hug then wandered into the house.

"Right, where's your stuff, Harry?" Remus asked, knowing to let Sirius assuage his curiosity before bringing him back to help with things that needed to be done.

Harry pointed at the cupboard under the stairs, with its lock and padlock over the latch that had been used to keep him in without need for the two locks that now kept him out.

"Is it possible to open it without magic? The ministry doesn't believe other wizards ever come here so they'll blame me."

"Ah," Remus nodded. "Sirius," he called, only slightly louder than his speaking voice.

Sirius entered again holding a double frame containing pictures of Dudley, looking slightly cherubic, from primary school. "Are there pictures of you like this?" he asked Harry.

"Uhh," Harry replied, "kinda."

Remus glanced between the two of them, then asked Sirius to pick the locks on the cupboard.

"Can we take them with us?" asked Sirius, no longer looking at Harry due to his focus on the locks. The picture of Dudley lay face down on the carpet.

"Um, I-" started Harry.

"It's a parent thing, isn't it?" asked Sirius, almost to himself, "keeping these young photos?"

"Yeah I guess." Harry smiled at the carpet. A tiny smile.

The second lock clicked.

"There," said Sirius.

"OK." Harry dragged his trunk awkwardly from the wardrobe, and made a gesture to stop Remus from shrinking it.

Harry steeped back into the cupboard and felt around under one of the lower shelves, pulling out a stack of papers he'd kept wedged in the metal support for the shelf. He stuffed them into the waistband of his jeans.

The he slipped upstairs to his room where he added the Summer's letters to the stack he held against his stomach. He grabbed his other shirt and trousers and rolled them up and into his pockets.

Harry then flicked through the wad of paper until he found what he was looking for, then stuffed the rest back under his shirt.

He grabbed Hedwig's cage and thundered down the stairs in a way only Dudley had ever done in Harry's memory of the Dursley house.

There was nothing but letters under his loose floorboards that year, so there was nothing else to take from the house.

Harry stuttered to a stop before Remus and Sirius then took a moment before thrusting the paper at Sirius.

"That's what I have as a photo," he said.

The paper was an individualised advert with sample shapes and measurements around a generic picture of a little girl. In the corner of the A4 sheet was a passport sized photo of Harry with the word 'preview' watermarked over it.

It was the letter home asking for purchase of his year five school photo. Year five had been the only year Dudley and Piers hadn't managed to sabotage his picture somehow. Previously they'd given him a black eye (year four), drawn on his face in permanent marker (year three) and stolen his school tie in the year teachers had decided to go super strict on school uniform and refused to photograph him. It had been meant as a threat to parents who didn't care much about primary school uniform.

Harry hadn't given the good photo to Aunt Petunia, and had wedged it, facing the pillow, under the shelf. He had gained some sort of satisfaction from the fact the Dursleys _did _have a photo of him up in the house, but aged nearly-fifteen he felt a little ashamed of it.

To avoid any further embarrassment or discussion Harry raised the end of the trunk and asked, "How're we going?"

"Mrs Figg's fireplace," replied Remus, taking Hedwig's cage from Harry and smirking at Sirius as Sirius realised he had to carry half a trunk.

XXX  
>XXX<br>XXX

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Sadly, it isn't likely that another chapter of this length will be up uber-fast, but it *is* still being written.  
>If you want to leave a review that would make me very happy!<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

The One Where the Canon Abuse is Still Abuse

The living room – which was the first one saw when entering by floo – was white and filled with a curious looking set of coloured blob furniture from the sixties.

From the outside (which Harry ran to view) it was a pale pink painted stone cottage, covered in climbing flowers, situated in a private orchard. The orchard was full of long dry grass and strange stone sculptures that looked like angry medieval people suddenly petrified, shrunk and turned to stone. Harry wondered what sort of person would commission such things to be made.

Looking from the garden, the house looked like it could only contain about four rooms maximum; two below and maybe two attic rooms.

From the inside however, it appeared that ever since the cottage had been built people had been adding extensions. The house had a mock tudor wing with latticed windows, an art deco wing with high ceilings and interesting lights, and a sixties second floor where the floo brought guests.

The house was brilliantly upside down. Rather than the private quarters – bedrooms, studies - being the upstairs of the house they were the rooms furthest from the floo. So, the ends of the wings and the downstairs (which was decorated as expected of a tiny pink cottage: wood and cushions). The wings, when one didn't think about them, were accessed from the first floor, but didn't have a ground floor. When thinking about this, and trying to imagine these floating wings, it was remarkably hard to locate the doors to such rooms, so Harry didn't.

Harry's room was in the twenties wing, it was cream coloured with swooping geometric lines of dark oak through the walls, doors and matching furniture. It was ever so slightly like an optical illusion but Harry assumed that living in a paradox of a house one got used to ignoring things the brain didn't compute.

It was going to be brilliant.

Harry ran back to where Sirius and Remus were sitting in the sixties living room. The chimney above the fireplace was one big lava lamp; Harry hadn't noticed that when exiting it.

"I love it!"

Sirius and Remus chuckled. "Marvellous!" and a quieter "So do I," were the responses.

Sirius slapped his knees and rose. "Right, lunch!"

Suddenly Harry remembered the Dursleys lunch that was going off as they spoke. But it was okay, surely it wouldn't be remembered by the time he returned next year? Fred and George obviously had been, but that had been different, right? This was just some food. But it had been Petunia's only order before she left, and she expected it done and it wasn't. And it really could make everything mouldy and they _would _remember that. And their chair covers were in the washing machine. That looked like a prank, those naked sofas.

"Uh, kiddo?" Sirius was peering into Harry's face. "You alright?"

Harry blinked. "Fine," he replied automatically. There was nothing he could do now, he supposed. Remus and Sirius would never take him back to Privit Drive just to throw away food and dry and replace cushion covers. "Yeah."

"Do you want lunch?"

"Yeah, sounds great." Harry carefully grinned.

"This way," said Remus. He lead the way to the mock tudor wing, to a kitchen with pots and herbs hanging from the low beams, and latticed windows letting in light over the wooden countertops. There was a huge wooden table at the end of the room that looked like it had been taken from a pub for people slightly bigger than the people Harry usually met. There were large wooden chairs surrounding it.

Remus set himself on a countertop out of the way, and Sirius started discovering ingredients. Over the course of making the meal Harry was silent, unable to add anything to the tiny conversations Remus and Sirius started and finished within a minute. Remus' job, though only carried out twice, seemed to be to slap Sirius lightly over the back of the head when he paused, and looked at some ingredient for too long. The second time Remus said quietly "bad dog," and Sirius smiled, though awkwardly.

Sirius served up a frittata. They all sat in the huge chairs: Remus and Sirius comfortably, Harry suddenly dwarfed. The growth spurt, as insufficient as it had been, no longer felt apparent.

Harry's ankles found each other and rubbed together, the bare skin between his two-centimetre-too-short jeans and sockless trainers allowing his uncushioned bones to privately let out some of the tension he was feeling.

"So, Harry, how has your summer been so far?" asked Remus with the style of politeness that only exists after periods of silence.

Harry chewed once more and swallowed quickly, a skill enforced by Petunia and Vernon's joint 'parenting' – Petunia refused to allow him to talk with his mouth full, Vernon refused to let him hesitate. "Fine." Harry gave a single nod, paused a micro second and added "Hot."

"Apparently there's a rumour at the ministry that it's me and my Death Eater ways, during my plan to break Bellatrix out of Azkaban with dark and summery rituals," said Sirius proudly.

"You started that rumour, Sirius," Remus said in a bored tone that didn't quite hide his pleasure at preventing Sirius from showing off. "And only Arthur's really heard it."

Sirius held up a finger and chewed for an elongated period before swallowing dramatically and responding "Not so. Apparently Arthur, as I know he would, asked Kelsie Carder if she had heard such a rumour. And now it's in the Quibbler."

Remus made a slightly impressed face, which he quickly hid by taking a long sip of water.

"Good to know you're spending your forced unemployment usefully," was the calmer response as Remus set his glass down.

Harry rubbed his ankles together.

Sirius smirked over the table at Remus, and expanded his view and grin to take in Harry. He looked back into Remus' eyes and said with genuine pride. "We have a _house_."

Remus grinned back, his gaze also widening to include Harry.

Harry pressed his ankles together and couldn't help but give a small smile at their obvious joy. They beamed at him.

After a second, Harry glanced down at the tree empty plates. He rose and leant over to pick up the men's plates "I'll –" he started.

Remus took out his wand, spelled the plates clean and flicked his wand, sending them back to the cabinets, which opened to accept them and closed softly behind them. He smiled in an odd mixture of smugness and kindness at Harry's slightly stunned expression.

"Magic," he said, in a tone of mock-mystery and wonder.

Harry let out a breath of laughter.

There was a silent second where Harry was standing at the head of the table, Remus and Sirius both looking up at him from their seats.

Remus gave Sirius the tiniest of looks – a look which once upon a time had been far more obvious and had been accompanied with a kick – and Sirius suggested Harry go unpack.

Harry, grateful for having a reason to be standing, darted out of the kitchen.

XXX

There was silence in the Grotto's kitchen as Harry's presence faded with his footsteps, and Remus felt comfortable starting a private conversation.

"Can I see the . . . paper" – Remus wasn't willing to call it a photograph – "Harry gave you?"

Sirius pulled out the unbattered paper from a pocket that should have been too small, and passed it across the table. He was willing to wait for Remus' explanation, as it clearly wasn't the same thing as the photo the muggles had had of their own son, but apparently being a grown up meant reserving one's judgement.

Remus unfolded the page that Sirius hadn't looked all the way through, scanning the content.

_Dear Parent/Guardian . . . pictures recently taken . . . attached sample . . . A6 £10, A5 £14, set of both £20 . . . paid by May 16__th__ . . . Mr Fairwood, Headmaster_

Nothing he hadn't expected.

He glanced back up to the sample photo stapled to the letter of the wide-eyed but smiling boy staring out behind the watermark. His uniform was a white shirt with a red tie. Kiddie Harry could at least be shown off as Gryffindor, though from the size of him and the state of his childhood home Remus had seen so far he doubted Harry could have been called either happy or healthy. At least Remus and Sirius had had one each at that age.

Remus passed the paper back over the table silently, and Sirius read through every word.

Finishing the letter, Sirius looked at Remus for an explanation. Not receiving one within a short enough space of time he began, "they . . . never bought the photo?"

"I don't think Harry gave them the chance but – " Remus shrugged "They had to have known there was one to buy. They had their kid's."

"That's . . . really weird." Sirius carded fingers through his hair. "I don't even . . . can you explain them?"

Remus stroked the edge of the letter Sirius had put down on the table, mildly surprised things like letters from teachers could last over five years. To him they had always been one of the more transient parts of childhood, like drawings on the wall that got spelled clean and Christmas cards that got thrown away. He thought about how convinced a child – who from Remus' experience were willing to hope even at a million to one chance – would have to be that they were not loved to not give such a letter to their family.

But he wasn't sure he could come close to understanding the people who made a child feel that way. Definitely not enough to attempt to explain to Sirius, who knew adults could abuse children, but only in a way that was because they, in the most twisted and base way, valued the child.

A flare of hope rose in the back of Remus' mind that Harry had been mistaken, that he – like so many other happy children who one day decide to run away from home, then walk half way down the street and return – had had a momentary lapse in his belief in his guardian's love, and had never rectified it in a way that would get him a picture on the wall.

Which wouldn't explain the fact that Sirius had evidently found no _other_ pictures of Harry beside those of his cousin, or the fact that Harry was home alone and didn't see the need to leave any message for his relatives, or his evident neediness he and Sirius had both noticed when Harry was thirteen or the fact that his magic stuff was locked under the stairs and also where were Harry's other clothes? - and so many flags were popping up in Remus' head he felt overwhelmed.

_Could there be any chance of an innocent explanation of all that?_ asked the flame of hope beguilingly.

Remus ignored the question. Instead he shook his head in response to Sirius' question and said "poor Harry" quietly.

Sirius pursed his lips, then started chewing on them angrily.

"I blame Dumbledore. What do I blame him for though? That they wouldn't give him a picture?" Sirius paused. "Oh, Merlin, I blame me." He carded his hands through his hair roughly, scraping his nails against his scalp.

Remus stayed quiet for a moment. "I'd also blame Dumbledore."

Sirius wondered whether the also meant Remus blamed both Dumbledore and Sirius, or agreed with Sirius that Dumbledore should be blamed. He didn't ask. Remus had previously told him that going after Peter had been 'the stupidest thing you've ever done', and, given Sirius' brilliant list of stupid things done in his lifetime, that was quite a statement. It was entirely possible that this was one of the ramifications that Sirius deserved the blame for.

Still, Sirius couldn't quite face Remus telling him outright this was his fault. Because he knew Remus would tell him if that's what he thought. Remus wasn't too much of coward to refuse to say what he was thinking.

"I – " Sirius started and stopped again. "I was going to say how couldn't anyone have noticed this, but I don't even know what 'this' _is_."

"Someone should have noticed." Remus was certain on this. He'd only seen abuse twice: Sirius, who's parents used spells and vile words and an entire legacy of hatred, and a muggleborn girl in Remus' first term as a teacher, who had arrived quiet and skittish and, as it turned out, covered in bruises. Admittedly this was different. But, nonetheless, "he showed signs of . . . something. Needing something. Some kind of help. Someone _should _have noticed."

_It shouldn't have needed noticing_, thought Sirius, his fingers still tangled in his hair.

XXX  
>XXX<br>XXX

A/N: Thank you to those of you who reviewed/put this in your alerts/favourites! I really appreciated it and your support definitely help me finally get this chapter complete!

Any future reviews will be cherished likewise. :)


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